the post sailing was responding to specifically mentioned WB CA pay, that was where that came from, he was not saying every pilot at DL makes that.

there are quite a few people I know at DL across all seniority ranges making significantly more than their hourly rate would suggest by working the system/contract.

I never claimed he said that.

Still wondering how many of the 13,000ish pilots are in that situation?

I’d heard that 5 pilots made a mil in 2019. Out of ~14,400.

No idea how many made over 600k, but my completely uninformed guess is that it’s less than a thousand.

Hopefully someone more informed chimes in.

No in typical pilot fashion they all claim to "know a guy doing it" and try to imply anyone can do it but in fact your chances of lining everything up and pulling that off are about 5 in... oh 13,500.

Can we get back to the main problem. He said it was okay the pay rates were lower because of all those contract gains we had.

Sailingfun? Go troll the Delta forums. He's management lackey #1. Just laugh at his BS and move on like they all do over in widget land.

What gets me is the other accounts chiming in that agree with him or validate his posts. I know there aren’t many pilots at D that could possible agree with him on so many things. It seems management has an operation here on APC to try to sway pilot opinion.

I certainly implied no such thing. You obviously have to be a WB CA, and most likely need some seniority to game the system to that degree. So maybe 30-50% of WB CA's are in a position to do it.

For the $1M+ threshold, it could quite plausibly be limited to a number you can count on both or even one hand.

$600K? One thousand sounds plausible.

Nobody is saying new hire FO's can do that. Only saying that it can be done, which is fact.

It's also possible to get 8 weeks off with vacay + bidding, but that also requires seniority.

No, I said that soft money due to work rule changes counts and it does. Would you rather get 300 an hour and net 300,000 or fly the same schedule getting 250 an hour but net 320,000? The answer is easy. As to the question about 600,000 lots of senior CA’s are making that and if you drop the number to 500,000 the number goes way up including narrow body captains. The original question was a comparison of widebody Captain pay. One other point, most pilots when asked what they made in a year quote their W2. They don’t add back in their contributions to their HSA, 401K and 401 catch-up if applicable.

While ago asked a question about commuting at JB. Their policy apparently requires them to look at weather and traffic. Big D chimes in they have to look at load factor. I replied with a copy/pasta of our policy. Reply was:"Well, it doesn't sound like you are making a concerted effort to get to work!". Really? I am making an effort to follow the contract, just like the other side does.

You implied your contract is now so much better than a few decades ago that everyone makes about 50% to 100% more credit hours. That is BS

What is “lots”? A handful? Dozens? Hundreds?

What is “senior CA’s” in this context? Top 10% of WB CAs? Top 30% of WB CAs?

These seem like very small numbers to me, no matter which way I look at it. And for those small numbers of CAs, most will only be making that much for the verrrry tail end of their careers, which doesn’t exactly matter much in terms of retirement.

Again are we not comparing senior Captains to Senior Captains from different eras?

Ok....how many? I find it strange that you claim numbers in round dollar figures but fail to claim numbers in how many pilots are making that much.

Now that's typical pilot thinking. "It's been a policy for years"never mind It's been a shifty policy for years. SHEEP

Did they poll the pilots on this? NO of course not. Just make up BS to feed to the sheep.

Probably the dumbest thing ALPA has done. UAL wants to expand and grow along with other airlines and ALPA is putting up a roadblock to mainly international expansion. Good thing these geniuses are not managing the airlines. But I digress irregardless of ALPA passing a worthless resolution the FAA / ICAO and Congess will increase the age because the traveling public will demand it. It's the only option that will fix the current mess overnight

ALPA has done plenty to de- value pilot labor. Lets Starr at not reinstating a pension plan. That one thing lone has taken millions out of pilots pockets. They won't even talk about it. I wonder often what side are these guys on?

Increase retirement age to 68
 

Only way to allow the growth plan to be realized and shore up the pilot pipe line. The airlines are leaving massive amounts of revenue sitting at the gates trying to get to their destination. ALPA lead or get out of the way. It's not like those senior WB Captains won't continue to pay dues. More pilots = more dues. But then again pilots are weak at basic math ( 63K 401K vs 130K lifetime pension what has more value ? ). This is my point. ALPA can scream.all they want but the vast majority of pilots want the retirement age lifted to meet demand.

A vote would be nice. Get a sense of the numbers. Go from there.

Source?


Filler

His imagination.

the manifesto scribbled in his crashpad

Since you say pilots are so bad at math, what has more value, $63k or $0k?

Because any pension will be gone after the next bankruptcy. No thanks, I’ll take my money now.

this place needs a like button

Formal standards for standardized "ab initio" pilot training programs, anyone?

Works for the military. Works for Lufthansa.

Airlines don't want to do it here, because they haven't had to, but also because they're at risk of the feds changing the rules/standards mid stream.

There's no shortage of dudes willing to fly 787/777s for UA. The only roadblock is UAL's (and other airline's) training pipelines. Age 65->Age 67 won't really fix that.

those senior WB captains will be restricted to domestic only. How many of them will want to go back to DEN-ORD-IAH-LAX-EWR-SFO-IAD and nowhere else? ICAO isn't going to just change their rules because Congress/FAA change ours.

ab initio is a massive threat to collective bargaining here in the US, and ALPA is way behind the ball on making sure that the company doesn't gain additional leverage over the pilots going through those schools.

Also ab initio pilots typically have less internal motivation/drive to become pilots... you'll get a lot more dudes and dudettes who aren't really passionate enough about flying to get it done themselves.

Let's not try to solve management's problems for them.

you sure it worked for Lufthansa?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

There's a lot more to that onion than the American press presents that can't be discussed here...or the American press, for that matter. The English version of Der Spiegel had some great articles a couple of months after the fact.

Germany is not alone in having tragic incidents like this either. (FedEx 705, anyone? Stanford alum AND US Navy trained/psych eval-ed)

Pretty sure that the ab initio training and flight skills weren't the problem.

(Not advocating ab initio....it is a threat to collective bargaining. Fortunately, US airlines aren't about to put down a penny more for training costs than absolutely necessary before the robots take over. Just throwing it out there.)

Can't be discussed here? What are talking about? You brought it up.

He was an ab initio cadet with 100 something hours when hired. He locked the Captain out of the cockpit and committed suicide by crashing into the Alps and killed all 144 aboard.

It sort of worked for them. They had the common sense to send the lesser candidates to their low-cast affiliate so as not to tarnish the big brand.

and the families of the 144 killed ....... how did it work for them?

is this where we pretend that ALPA just waves a magic wand and suddenly pensions come back?

Agreed. Funny how the guys in favor of raising the retirement age are the same ones babbling about bringing back pensions with the same passive-aggressive arguments and attacks for those who disagree.

This is such a stupid "debate" and I can't believe it's still raging. Nobody cares what we think they are either going to do this or not do this and endlessly arguing about whether it should happens here solves nothing. as usual, pilots give themselves way too much credit and control.

what does this sentence

Have to do with this sentence?

There have been more than 1 suicide by pilot accident, and ab initio does not appear to be a common denominator. For example

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185

I'm convinced he's a troll and not a pilot at all. I haven't met ONE pilot in the past decade who wants the traditional pension back. We all know it is a fantasy. And if in some strange alternate universe it were to be "restored" it would merely be terminated in some future BK, but not until we had eviscerated our contract (again) in order to "save the pension."

"Fool me twice, shame on me" comes to mind.

they have to do with the original comment where someone said ab initio works for Lufthansa.

if that is your definition of "it works" then I bet there are 144 families who disagree.

Actually, I didn't. YOU brought up the Germanwings incident as an example of why ab initio was a bad idea. I suggested there was more to it and directed you towards sources more detailed and interesting reporting besides American media "NEWS ALERT!!!!! - Guy went nuts and suicided".

There's some touchy subjects involving sexual preferences, mental health, voluntary disclosure of medial records to aviation authorities, big pharma, recent rulings on pilots use of antidepressants, big pharma, medical diagnoses that have different long term prognosis based on gender, etc.

Have a nice day.

You missed my point.

Nope..... someone said ab initio works for Lufthansa and I simply mentioned the fact that one of their ab initio cadets hired at 100 hours was the pilot who crashed Germanwings 9525.

Then you went off on a tangent about sexual preferences.

There are no "touchy subjects" about it, the pilot crashed it on purpose.